Re: evaluate software.

[Harald Thingelstad <thingelstad@powertech.no>]

tor, 2002-09-12 kl. 19:02 skrev Ben Armstrong:
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 06:06:00PM +0200, Jérôme Signouret wrote:
> > I'm thinking all educationnal software need to be see by some teacher to
> > tell what children can use it.
> > I'm thinking the level of children are very different in all country.
> > In france in physics and chemistry we have a strict program. It's very
> > difficult to find a software who is agree with the program.
> > The list can create a list of software you can in each country for each level.
> > Isn't it ?
> 
> If you're talking about development of curricula using open and free
> resources, that is yet a different problem than simply making the software
> available to people.  I think DebianEdu's goal necessarily needs to be to
> provide breadth of coverage, giving educators choices, not to make the
> choices for them.  From one country to another, and from one level to
> another, the needs, as you say, are very different.  Debian does not need to
> involve itself with those decisions.  So long as someone, somewhere says "I
> would like to see this included in DebianEdu because it would be useful in
> my classroom" then I believe it should be included.
> 
> Now, to a certain extent, DebianEdu should help focus the decision-making
> process by including the best quality alternatives available (excluding, for
> example, badly maintained or broken software where better, working
> alternatives exist) and grouping the software into individual meta packages.
> 
> In other words, DebianEdu, like Debian Jr., provides a foundation for a
> whole array of different very specific applications.  It is still the job of
> the user to make further selections from our very broad offerings to meet
> their specific needs.
> 
> But for help on deciding how to use the software provided by Debian in your
> curricula, I think you should look to Schoolforge[1] which includes a number
> of projects with a more narrow focus on using open resources in particular
> locales and for particular age ranges.
> 

I'll have to agree here.
In one way of seeing things:
Not just are there different needs in different schools in different
countries, it's difficult to say which age group they belong to, too. 
Some examples: 
  Astronomy is taught on all age levels, from primary school to
university, and applications like kstars and celestia can be used in
different ways, for all of them. This is by a large part due to what is
known as the spiral principle. At first, you get a cursory introduction
to the topic at hand. "All the stars are suns, and earth is one of many
planets circling our particular sun. For most suns out there we see as
stars, there are planets circling around, just like ours. There are
millions of planets out there, and with all those planets, there should
be some few ones looking rather much like ours." Information like this,
properly illustrated, brings up a whole world of issues and ideas, which
needs to be discussed. Perhaps quite enough for one class level. Then,
after two or three years as the pupils have learnt other things required
to understand more of the topic of interest, it's brought up again.
Perhaps they'll go through the moons phases, and why this happens. Then,
some time later, perhaps something about gravity and tidal waves. And on
again and on again, till you one day might choose to specialize on this
topic and make it more an issue of full-time studies.
  Another example: Some primary schools like to focus on programs with a
simple user interface, like kword, for word-processing. More complex
programs will have to wait. Others want to teach primary school pupils
the use of Openoffice.org, and make it part of a "drivers licence", make
them handle the complexities from scratch and get away with the msword
compatibility issues. Others again, have caught on the idea of using
Lyx, for the need of focusing on the writing process not layout, bells
and whistles. You can't count on different schools wanting to do things
the same way, even with the same curriculum.
  And again: Some programs cover a wide and sometimes surprising range
of topics. On one hand, Lyx for focusing on the writing process. On the
other, Lyx for being able to write complex mathematical texts. Measuring
equipment is mostly used in physics labs, but did you remember the gym?
Measuring reactions to different types of work is a great way of
learning to know your body.
Categorization is hopeless.

Another way of seeing it:
We need categorization, or we'd be hopelessly lost.

What we've seen from the web so far is categorization, plus some short
descriptions. The users still need to do research, try it out for
themselves, perhaps choose between half a dozen programs, and see what
works best for them.
Your typical teacher isn't in the mood to do do such an amount of
research for every application they need, they're more like using
something they've used before or what their friends might do.

Collecting such experiences is part of what we plan to do with the
Skolelinux project as soon as we get it off ground, but there are lots
of others out of there and I think we could benifit from doing some kind
of international effort.

So, perhaps this isn't the right place to do this kind of thing, but
what should be done?

Harald Thingelstad